Take a Hike: Red Rock Trail, Mogollon Rim

Walking up the Red Rock Trail shouldn't take you very long. The trail is short - just 1.5 miles one way, though it goes uphill and is a bit challenging because of the elevation gain alone.

It's a spur of the Highline Trail, which runs about 50-miles beneath the Mogollon Rim. The Highline serves as the course for the Zane Gray Highline Trail 50, an ultramarathon for people in very good shape. The Highline was established in the late 1800s to link homesteads and has many spurs, allowing it to be hiked in sections and loops.

The Red Rock Trail leaves from a very small parking area on Forest Road 64, otherwise known as Control Road, into a forest of pine, oak and juniper.

After a while, it opens up a bit, you can catch glimpses of the Rim and the hills below. The vegetation begins to include a few prickly pear cactus and agave in these open sections. The Tonto National Forest map doesn't show this, but the trail splits. Go right. Left will simply take you back to Control Road.

Turning right gets you into the tough part, where the footing is a little tougher, with big rocks that can shift a bit, but it's nothing too serious if you are careful. Here the trail, which starts out about 8 or 10 feet wide, gets narrower.

Once you're on top, you'll find Red Rock Spring to the left, as well as a nice little campsite. Don't count on drinking out of the spring, contained in a concrete stock tank, without a filter.

It seemed a shame to stop walking after just 1.5 miles, so we kept going to the next spring, Pine Spring, a shady spot about a mile east. Tall pines, oak, even a nice sycamore grew there. There's a gate and fence that have seen better days as well. It's a perfect spot to pause in the shade before heading back.

A word of caution: The Highline Trail is not easy to follow. There's a trail there all right, but it's pretty narrow, in thick brush, and the web site for the ultramarathon warns that they have had to send Search and Rescue crews to find runners in the past. They're not joking. I

To return to the trailhead, go back the way you came.

When: Fall, spring.

Where: To get to the trailhead, drive about 10 miles north of Payson on Arizona 87 The turnoff is on the right, about 2 miles past Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. Go about 2 miles on Control Road, and start looking on left for the signed trailhead on the left.